workingwomenworkingpoor_letter_web

or SERs. Or, in other word, a secure permanent job at 40 hrs/week with benefits. Accordingto the recent PEPSO (2013) study, the number of people in the GTA who describe theirjobs as temporary has increased by 40% in the four years from 2007 to 2011. Additionally,according to the same study, in 2011 only half of the employed people in the GreaterToronto and Hamilton Area between the ages of 25 to 65 were in ‘standard employmentrelationships’ or SERs and another 9% were in permanent part-time employment (p.16).There is clearly a link between the recession, the loss of good jobs and the loss of uniondensity in the GTA and Ontario. These three trends are also linked to the austerity agenda.Austerity measures implemented by municipal, provincial and federal governmentsrefer to policies to reduce government spending and increase taxes on the premise thatthis will balance the budget. Austerity measures also include privatization, out-sourcing,cuts in services, maximization of profits and attacks against workers and unions. Reducinggovernment spending means cut-backs to public sector services such as in health, education,child care, transportation, etc. provided by governments. Reducing public services alsomeans layoffs of employees in the public sector many of whom are women. The cuts inservices such as child care, recreational programmes, extended health, libraries, etc. increasewomen’s domestic burdens.Governments can stimulate the economy by creating jobs for the provision of bettereducation and health care facilities and services, expand public infrastructure such as forpublic transportation, affordable and accessible childcare, affordable housing, better qualityretirement homes and services for the elderly, environmental protection and the upgradingof infrastructure such as for water, sewerage and solid waste management in the TorontoArea and across the province. Such employment options need to intentionally hire bothwomen and men, racialized women and men and young women and men as per theircomposition in the local populations.Women have always faced numerous discriminations in the labour force and continueto be paid less than men for equal work. This difference in wages is referred to as the genderwage gap. It is usually measured by assessing full-time, full year wages. According to StatisticsCanada data, the gender wage gap in Ontario is 28%. This means that for every $1.00earned by a male worker, a female worker earns 72 cents. 4Research from the Wellesley Institute indicates that in Ontario more women than men arelikely to be working for the minimum wage and many of them are likely to be racialized andimmigrant. From the total number of workers in Ontario who are minimum wage earners,16.3% of them are racialized women, 11.3% are the total number of women, 8.7% are racializedmen and 7.4% are the total number of men. Women who are recent immigrants are workingfor minimum wage at almost 3 times the rate of the total population (Block, 2013, p.4).Furthermore, according to the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA), 57% of theworking-age population is immigrant and the proportion of the working poor in the CMAwho were immigrants was 73% (Stapleton et al, 2012, p11). 5 This data establishes a stronglink between one’s immigrant status and poverty.Women are the ones primarily, though not exclusively, responsible for and do the majorityof the work of the ‘care economy’. The care economy includes both paid and unpaid careactivities. The unpaid care economy includes raising children, preparing food, cleaning,washing, looking after family members and relatives, and sustaining family and communitynetworks. Thousands of women in the GTA not only work in the care economy, they alsowork in the production and waged economy. They often do more than one job. Unfortunately,despite how much work women do whether working in the home and/or outside thehome, women and their families continue to live as the working poor. Clearly, singlemother households fare a lot worse than dual income households.8 WORKING WOMEN, WORKING POOR